The After Show: Yogurt Shop Murders

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Welcome to 2020 The After Show.

I'm Debra Roberts and as always, it is really a pleasure to have you here with us.

As we take a deep look at a 2020 episode that we have covered, as you all know,

we always take a deeper dive into some of those details that you learned about on a Friday night.

Well, our most recent episode called Yogurt Shop Murders is a notably chilling story that

just made headlines for really more than 30 years.

It goes back to December 6, 1991, when 14 girls were brutally murdered.

I mean, just in a way that it just almost hard to describe at a yogurt shop in Austin, Texas.

The victims were sisters Sarah and Jennifer Harbison who were 17 and 15 at the time.

Eliza Thomas, a friend of theirs who was 17 and Amy Ares who was only 13 years old when she

was murdered. These girls were found bound sexually assaulted and shot.

It was just something that was beyond imagination.

And then afterwards, the shop was set on fire.

Obviously, in an attempt to cover the grisly crime, to cover up all the evidence.

And the case just left the community heartbroken.

And as you might imagine, a police force just struggling to try to solve this case.

Along the years, as they began to investigate, and I say years because this case did take years

to solve, there were false confessions, there were dead ends.

And then thanks to a team that just would not give up, ultimately a killer was identified.

But it was 34 years later.

Well, if you saw our 2020 episode, you know our story is centered around exclusively,

by the way, an interview with Mindy Montford who is a former Assistant Texas Attorney General

who really helped crack this case. Mindy is here with us now to share some details about this case.

Mindy, it is such a pleasure to have you.

Thank you, Deborah. I'm very happy to be here.

And thank you for the coverage you've given this case.

Oh, my goodness. Of course, I mean, it's one of those that people have been talking about for a long time.

I wish you and I could be together in person.

But I know you're working on lots of things out there in Texas.

But let's just start off with the case to begin with because you worked tirelessly on this,

along with other investigators, of course.

But when you came into the case, people had essentially kind of given up on it being solved really.

And you wanted to just jump right into this because it kind of resonated with you.

Why was it that this case touched something and you just off the start?

Well, I actually have been in Austin, Texas since 1976 and grew up in that neighborhood.

I've been to the North Cross Mall. I've been to the yogurt shop.

That is a neighborhood that it was a community.

And when this happened, I remember I was in college

and seeing the news coverage of my neighborhood, you know, this horrific crime.

I mean, back then, too, if you recall, we would walk everywhere as a kid.

You didn't even have a phone.

Your parents trusted you on a bike for hours.

So that was the environment we grew up in.

And then to just fast forward being college, seeing this on TV and folding in my community, it was horrible.

Then over the years, just following the case and going through law school,

then I became a prosecutor.

But watching what these families went through through the justice system repeatedly

and just being victimized over and over again by the system,

I just really wrote my heart for them and I always had an interest in the case.

Yeah. And when you think about it, these girls were just a little bit younger than you were

because you're right there in college thinking about somebody who could be your age.

You touched on something when you talked about those innocent times of kids,

you know, just walking around and riding their bikes.

And in this case, just hanging out at a yogurt shop, right?

Two of the girls worked there in our episode.

Somebody described this as the day that Austin lost its innocence.

And you could see that that was what happened.

I mean, this tragedy really impacted the community in a huge way.

I don't think we've ever been the same sense.

It just was, when you talk to anybody in Austin, Texas, and if you say, you know,

like years ago, I would say, oh, I'm a prosecutor.

Oh, have you ever heard of the yogurt shop murders?

I mean, it was just everybody knew about this case.

And we were a small community back then, not so much today.

But it really did change, it changed us.

It just did not make sense.

Yeah.

It just changed our community really did.

I can imagine, and I've covered so many of these stories.

And we often do when, you know, they're in a fairly small town.

And Austin, as you said, is sort of bustling now.

But, you know, people really did feel very safe and sort of protected.

And so when this kind of thing happens, it shakes you.

Let's talk about those, those four girls, Sarah, Jennifer, Eliza,

and Amy, as I said, doing something so innocent.

A couple of the girls worked at the yogurt shop.

They're all just, they're kind of hanging out.

And their lives were viciously cut short.

And I think in some ways, that is what haunted this community more than anything else.

I mean, any horrible crime is a horrible crime.

But in this case, young, I mean, basically babies.

Babies, people who could be your next door neighbors, your sisters, your daughters,

your friends.

And the fact that it was something, like you mentioned, so innocent.

I mean, what's more innocent than having an extra job

and hanging out with your friends waiting for a closing,

you know, to go have a sleepover from the yogurt shop of all places.

And, you know, it's just, I think you're right.

I think the fact that it was a yogurt shop,

their ages, the fact that there were multiple victims,

that the way they were murdered, it just, again,

this just didn't happen in Austin, Texas back then.

Yeah, well, it was in the 90s.

So you come along later on, 2017, you joined this case.

And as you said, and we can talk more later about

what you brought to the case from your expertise.

But talk to me a little bit about when you joined the case

and what you learned from the families,

because they had been through the ringer

over, you know, more than two decades at that point, almost three decades.

And no answers really.

I mean, a lot of twist and turns, which we'll get to.

But what would the families like for you to meet at that time?

I still remember that vividly that day.

And I think I even called my father actually

had been a prosecutor back in the 70s.

And I remember calling him and telling him,

this had been one of the best days of my career,

that the fact that I've met these families

who I've just followed throughout the years

and been, you know, my heart broke for them.

And then to think that I'd go from a college room

watching this news coverage to actually working on the case,

you know, in 2017, that was just full circle for me.

I was just so honored to be included in the meeting.

And then, you know, as the meeting progressed,

the district attorney Margaret Moore at the time said,

look, we're going to not only are we going to keep investigating this case

and fight till the end and try to get you answers,

but I'm going to assign my first assistant, Mindy Monford,

to lead the team.

And not, you know, so that was just,

I didn't even see that coming, by the way.

She didn't tell me that before the meeting.

Otherwise, you might have been more nervous

than you were.

I probably would have.

Yeah, well, you were held up as somebody

who was going to take a fresh look at the case.

But it's just really astounding to me.

There were false confessions, which implicated four young men.

And let's talk about them.

Robert Springsteen, Forest, Wellburn, Michael Scott,

and Maurice Pierce.

And various ones had been arrested and either convicted,

but then the cases had been dismissed.

Tell us a little bit about how police had to deal

with all of that over the years.

I know, Deborah, we may need like five episodes.

Episodes, yeah.

I tell you what, this case, I mean, a lot of cases have,

you know, a crazy appellate system and legal history.

But this one really takes the cake,

because not only did you, you started out,

you had false confessions, not just from the individuals

who ended up getting charged ultimately,

but we had confessions from, I mean,

two, people from Mexico that were candid.

You know, the details didn't add up.

Then you had all these people from the mall,

you know, this mall crowd, this high school group.

And they were all giving, you know, incriminating statements.

And just, and then later would, you know,

not pass a polygraph and recant and say,

well, I just did it because I had a, he made a man

hit on my girlfriend, right?

You know, I mean, it just went on and on.

And when you read the police report, it is,

it is so hard to read because it just keeps going in circles.

I mean, there's just so many twists and turns.

But then yes, but you ultimately end up with Maurice Pierce

actually flashing his 22 gun around the mall.

And that's the same caliber, one of the guns

that was used in the yogurt shop was 22.

They were each shot with the 22.

And then Amy had a second shot with the 380.

But he was bragging about that and making comments.

And so people then start calling the police

and, you know, giving tips to this.

And so then Maurice is interviewed.

And then he implicates the other three.

Right.

And that's what sort of turn long forcement on initially.

But when Maurice Pierce gives his statement originally,

one of the detectives comes in and reviews it and says,

no, this just does not add up.

You know, and by the way, the gun, they tested the gun.

And it was inconclusive.

So they basically let Maurice Pierce go.

And in the report initially, it says is cleared as a suspect.

Yeah.

And then of course, years later, they would come back,

they would come back and look at them.

And we talk about that in the piece,

how police would circle back around to this crowd.

They were making no progress, no arrest.

What's a little frightening about this, though,

is that two people were convicted.

And one of them could have been put to death

because of this.

Let's talk about that because Robert Springsteen

was actually eventually tried and sentenced to death.

Michael Scott was sentenced to life in prison.

And everybody seemed to think the case was solved.

I mean, they were convicted.

And the family even sort of, I guess,

finally breathed a sigh of relief, right?

Yes, yes.

I think that's very fair to say they were convinced

that there were these two confessions

that were taken separately, separate cities

by different investigators.

And the statements seemed to have incriminating information

that was consistent in both of those statements.

And so ultimately, the judge found

that those were admissible in court.

And then do you have two separate juries?

Review those confessions, spend hours on those confessions,

and then deliberate and they found them both guilty

in separate juries.

Yeah.

So that goes on.

And everybody thinks that this case has been solved

and sadly, maybe that's the end of it.

So the Texas appeals court then overturns both Scott

and Springsteen's convictions because of some technicalities

about cross-examining witnesses.

And at that point, of course,

we didn't have modern DNA like we do right now.

But the charges ultimately against all of these folks

would be dismissed.

One man could have been put to death.

And clearly, the wrong people were behind bars.

That was also difficult for the family, too.

We talk about in our piece in 2020,

having thought that this case was put to rest

and now they don't know what to believe.

No, that's exactly right.

And I think if you talk to the families today,

they'll even tell you with this new information,

they don't quite know if they should believe it

because they believe this other information for so long.

But I think they felt that with two different juries

returning verdicts of guilty that they had the right guys.

And I believe that they did believe

that they had the right people.

But the court did say that it was not,

but these were not the right people.

Well, actually, it's even more traumatic for the families

because the first thing that happened

was the Supreme Court, actually,

the United States Supreme Court changed its ruling,

saying that you had to be a certain age

before you'd be eligible for death row.

And that's why springsteens was commuted to life.

So that was the first thing that happened

where the families had to deal with him

getting commuted to life.

And then the second thing that happened

was another Supreme Court hearing

which was talking about the confessions themselves.

And so any trial in America that had taken place

where you put a co-definanced confession

against the other co-definit

without putting the co-definit on the stand,

that was remanded to have a new trial.

And that's what happened here.

So again, it's chipping away a bit by bit.

They just kept getting this more bad news to the families.

Of course, they're sitting there thinking,

where's the justice in this?

Now we have to go through another set of trials.

And it was at that point that the prosecution decided

we didn't have DNA back when we had the first trials,

maybe with new technology, as you mentioned,

we might be able to get something.

Yeah, so ultimately, all of these folks were dismissed.

And there was just recently a hearing

that formally cleared all of their names.

What was your reaction?

I think I've spent so much time on this case now

and I know the evidence against Robert Bashir's.

And I do not find any evidence at this point

that Robert Bashir's had any contact

with the original individuals who were charged.

And so therefore, I thought it was the right thing to do.

And Bashir's is a name that's going to factor later on.

We'll talk a little bit, but I want to hear from you

because I'm sure our listeners and viewers out there

will want to know when you think about false confessions,

why would anybody confess?

And why would anybody even try to implicate themselves

into a heinous crime which you could wind up going to prison

for life for possibly being put to death?

I mean, that is something that nobody can really understand.

I still can't understand it, Deborah.

I, that is the one thing that I,

it just causes me pause all the time

because I'm thinking, why would you implicate yourself?

Why would you do this?

But we know it happens because now we do have DNA

and we've seen so many cases that have been cleared

and individuals have been exonerated.

Thank God for DNA or because other people come forward

and provide new evidence or maybe someone confesses

a jailhouse confession, but we know it happens.

Yeah, and in this case, too,

when we talk about the individuals here,

there was a lot of interrogation and all of that.

You call it the no-stradamus effect?

I can't take credit for that,

but I have been struggling with this idea of false confessions

and I ended up talking to Vern Pearson.

He was an elected district attorney out in California

and he's actually become quite the expert

on false confessions and he goes and he speaks

at different trainings for prosecutors and detectives

so that they can see how this can happen.

And he actually is the one who,

he said it can happen for a lot of reasons,

but one of the things is what he calls the no-stradamus effect.

You know, no-stradamus made thousands of predictions

and if you just put one set of facts into one of those,

you know, you're gonna get it right.

You're bound to find something that's gonna be true.

Exactly.

That's gonna be, or corroborate your evidence.

Yeah, yeah, interesting.

Yeah, 50-50 shot that it was, you know,

you know, a gun versus a knife, right?

I mean, so, you know, it's, it, things like that.

Yeah.

You call it the no-stradamus effect.

And it does happen, too.

You're absolutely right.

We've heard about that over the years.

Well, you hit on something that I want to talk about more DNA,

which played a pivotal part in solving this case

after 30 years.

So, Mindy, don't go anywhere

because I want to talk more about that.

One of the victims, they were actually able to extract

some DNA from and then actually using modern technology

make a big difference in this case.

So, we want to talk about that.

We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to 2020 The Aftershow.

I'm talking with Mindy Montford,

who is a former cold case prosecutor.

She helped solve a case that seemed to be unsolvable

in Austin, Texas.

Over the years, it was called yogurt shop murders

for young girls who were just brutally murdered.

And Mindy, it's just so great to talk to you about this

because many of the cases that we talk about turn on DNA

and even when they're old cases

and people are often surprised by that

because when you apply modern technology,

but that made such a big difference in this case,

it everything evolved over the years.

And the family, of course, is in limbo or the families

because we're talking two sisters and then two other girls.

So three sets of families here.

And you got to know the families really well over time.

You had to gain their trust.

You're working to solve these murders.

And give me a sense of what that was like for you.

You grew up knowing about this case

and now you're talking and working with the families.

What was that like for you and for them

as you all made this connection?

Well, it was surreal coming full circle

as someone who lived in the community,

grew up in that community in that neighborhood

and then to watch the footage in college

and then find myself as a prosecutor later in life

working on the case.

It was an incredible opportunity.

I was humbled to even be a part of it.

And I instantly had a connection with the Ayers family.

That's who we met with the first time I got involved

in the case in 2017.

Their daughter was the youngest one, 13 years old.

Right, Amy Ayers.

And I believe, I'm probably not overstating this.

I believe we have talked emailed, communicated,

I have to say on a weekly basis,

maybe every other week since that meeting in 2017.

I mean, even if it was just an email to check in,

we've stayed in touch and stayed close, yes.

Yeah, you formed a real bond with these families

and this family in particular.

Well, let's talk about the cold case unit

because that was what sort of turned

this whole thing around.

Many states have started these cold case units,

but this one started and you had a lot to do with that.

Was it because of your memories

and your connection to this case?

I think so.

I'm going to say yes because there were several reasons.

One, we actually met with the Golden State Killer investigation

team to sort of triage the yogurt shop murders at one point.

And we learned about all the resources

that were available outside of Austin, Texas.

And we thought, if we didn't know about these experts

in these private labs, how does Corpus Christi know?

How does Lubbock know?

And why isn't this more of a statewide resource?

And so at some point, we came up with a pitch

and we thought that the Attorney General's Office

would be a really good place to have a unit

because it has statewide jurisdiction.

You have prosecutors in that office,

a pellet, prosecutors in the office,

and then criminal investigators.

So what a better place than to have it in the AG's office.

Yeah, and then to start connecting the dots

with all of these different places.

That's right.

And to really be able to serve as a resource

for the whole state and to be able to connect, like you said,

experts, labs, different cities with each other,

with different cases that might be similar.

And so we went and made this pitch along with the airs.

The airs came to the meeting with the Attorney General's Office,

myself, and then the sergeant of the Austin Police Department

Cole Case Unit at the time.

And we did a PowerPoint.

And I'll never forget at the very end,

the airs looked at this room full of suits.

And they said, look, this may not help our case,

but if it helps one family, then it's worth it.

So they were still hanging in there

if nothing else just for the impact.

So of course, you're teaming up with others,

and you've got to deal with law enforcement

when you're doing this.

And about a year later, Detective Dan Jackson

gets involved in the case.

Talk a little bit about his work on the case

and the two of you working together.

Sure, that was a great moment.

And I knew that Dan was going to be taking

to look at this case from a different viewpoint.

And he did know about the case.

He also grew up here in Central Texas,

and he remembered it as a young boy.

And I do want to say, over the years,

the Austin Police Department has had several dedicated detectives

to this case, and they were amazing.

And I can't say enough great things

about the resources that they devoted.

But as you know, with departments, people get promoted.

Change, culture in and out.

Right.

So when Dan Jackson comes on, the airs

are very, very skeptical, because as they put it,

this is number 242 on the case.

When you look at all the different people

who've worked from the police department on the case,

and Dan basically told them, I'm going to work hard,

and I'm going to be the last detective on this case.

And they're thinking, yeah, we've been there and done that

and seen that, and understandably,

because they've had no answers.

And it is sort of remarkable that they would hang in there

and keep trying to see change.

You're bringing a first set of eyes, the two of you,

and a lot of the stories that we've covered on 2020 turn

on that, somebody knew who has come into office

who suddenly sees something a little different.

Maybe looking at the same evidence everybody else has,

but sees it differently.

What struck you, too, when you began to look?

I mean, again, as you said, the DNA evidence was not compelling

in terms of not having anybody to connect it to.

So what evidence really struck you?

Dan and I both knew when he came on board,

I told him, look, we've got this, and he knew,

but it was this Y profile, which is a male,

unknown male profile that was from the crime scene,

a vaginal swab from Amy Ayers.

And that was the one, by the way, that was the reason

when it didn't match to the original four suspects

that the DA's office had to dismiss the case.

You cannot take a case like that to trial

when you have an unknown profile

and expect a jury to come back with a very original doubt

that you just can't do it, right?

That definitely gives them reasonable doubt.

And so we knew before we could move forward on this case again,

we had to figure out who's profile that was.

And the problem with that, of course, is,

that's what we've been stuck.

We've been stuck for years trying to figure that profile out.

So I think when Dan came on board, we basically said,

okay, number one, we both agree,

we've got to figure out whose DNA that is.

Yeah, whether it's a customer, an employee,

a first responder, or a suspect,

we've got to figure out whose DNA that is.

The other thing we thought was,

we have focused on that for so long

that why aren't we going back and looking at all the evidence

and seeing, okay, now it's, you know, 2022, 2023,

maybe technology has changed enough

that we could go back and retest some of those items.

You looked at an old shell casing

and then there's something called the Niven system

that you utilized in the case.

That's right.

The Niven system is that basically it's,

it's like you hear codeus for DNA, a database,

a national database.

Niven is for ballistics, so for shell casings and guns

and it's, you know, supposed to connect firearms

to different crime scenes

after they're uploaded by law enforcement.

Okay, so you're looking at all of this

and now you've, you know,

you're sort of on to something that's a little bit more modern

in terms of the way you can look at this evidence.

And then in summer of 2025,

you get a phone call that changes everything.

A match all the way in South Carolina.

Right, well, we had two crazy phone calls.

The first was when the Niven hit came back

to an unsolved case in Kentucky.

And at first we were thinking, okay,

well, anybody could maybe steal a gun or sell a gun.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's connected to yogurt shop,

but when we read the police report

from the Kentucky case, the Lexington Kentucky case,

it put chills in us because it literally involved

a strip center, a business in a strip center,

a woman had been shot in the head with a 380.

She was naked from the waist down

and then they set the place on fire.

Which is exactly what had happened

with the yogurt shop murders.

I couldn't get on a plane to Lexington fast enough

with the police.

I was like, let's go tomorrow.

You know, we've got to figure out more about this case.

And so that was our first, you know,

aha, oh my gosh, the first phone call.

Then that basically led Dan Jackson to say,

well, wait a minute, you know,

we have not done a national request

for local crime labs to run our DNA,

our YSTR, our male profile that was unknown.

In 2019, we had asked for crime labs across the country

to do what's called a manual keyboard search

where they actually manually enter the DNA components.

Yeah, very time consuming.

See it, maybe it matches.

Very time consuming and a lot of labs

don't have the time to stop and do it for you.

So it's really kind of a hail Mary.

But in 2019, we had done that and not had any results.

But here we are with this niban lead now.

And Dan thought, you know what, let's do again.

Let's try it again.

Let's have another request.

So that goes out and we get this hit to South Carolina

and then we can't find out a name

or anything about it for three weeks

while legal figures out if they can release it too.

But meanwhile, you know something is happening.

Something is percolating here, which is so amazing

when you think about it.

It's all about trying and trying and trying again

and you just actually happen to hit pay dirt.

Well, then ultimately you hear the name Robert Brashears.

And you Google and you start looking

and what are you learning about this guy?

Because you talk about the one crime

and now suddenly you're gonna be looking

at a lot of other crimes.

It was crazy.

I mean, the craziest thing is when we were waiting

for three weeks, I was told that it matched

to a serial killer in South Carolina.

So you mentioned Google, that's what I was doing.

I was googling serial killers.

And nothing came up on Robert Brashears.

It was the strangest thing.

So once we did get his name, we found out more about him.

Our next question was, well, what was he doing in Texas?

Does he have any Texas ties?

And of course, that would be the next crazy moment

in this case when we found out two days

after the yogurt shot murder, he was arrested

in a stolen vehicle with a 380,

trying to go into New Mexico.

He was at the border in Texas and New Mexico and got stopped.

And we knew, I mean, are you kidding?

I mean, it has to be him.

That was a moment for you, the aha moment.

You knew at that point you had the person.

His MO, once we were learning more about the crimes

that they knew he had committed, and then

to be in Texas two days after the yogurt shop,

getting out of the state, and then to have a 380 in his possession,

it's going to be a real weird coincidence if it isn't him.

Yeah, at that point, you knew you had your killer.

You go and you share the news with the families, actually,

in person, because you want to tell them,

once you feel like you've got this crime solved,

that had to be a real moment for all of you.

It was, there's moments as flashbacks that you remember,

and you remember forever, one was the first meeting in 2017.

And then, of course, it's where I was when we got

to certain pieces of information about brochures.

And then, of course, a career highlight

going and finally delivering the news, we had been,

I mean, it was surreal that we, I couldn't believe

we had the answer after all this time.

I knew, Deborah, I knew we would find it because we had DNA.

And I always felt like one day technology would catch up

and we'd figure it out.

I just didn't know if I'd be alive.

But I knew that it would be one day I did.

So you finally get a match.

You are convinced you've got your killer

and then devastating news in a way

when it comes to finding a day in court.

Robert Bushier's had died in 1999

in a standoff with police.

So you know you've got your person,

but you don't really have the person

to be able to bring into court.

That had to be pretty devastating.

We knew that when we told the families that

it was gonna be a hit to them.

You know, I do think, though, looking back on it

when we talked to Barbara and told her he was deceased

at first her reaction was, you know, oh, you know, dang it.

But then she kind of came back and said, you know what?

I don't think I could survive another trial.

I don't think I could go through this again.

So, you know, I think in a lot of these cold cases,

sometimes we, I mean, a lot of times

the perpetrator ends up being dead

because of so much time has elapsed.

That's right.

Yeah, but a lot of times the families just want the answers, you know?

In this case, you got not only an answer to that,

but so many other things.

Mindy, I want to continue talking about Bushier's

when we come back because what you learned

about him was absolutely mind-blowing about his past.

And also, what his own daughter told us in 2020

about what it was like growing up

the daughter of a serial killer.

You're gonna hear more about all of that,

so don't go anywhere.

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The new season of scrubs, Wednesdays,

eight seven central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

Welcome back to 2020 The After Show.

I am talking with Mindy Monferna,

former assistant Texas attorney general,

who was just pivotal in helping solve a cold case

called the yogurt shop murders.

And it took the lives of four young girls, Sara and Jennifer

Harbison, Eliza Thomas and Amy Ayers.

And Mindy says that she will never forget them

or their parents.

And Mindy, so much of what you did was skilled.

And then a lot of it too was sort of luck

in the sense that you guys stayed on this case.

You stayed on this case in DNA,

modern DNA technology had changed so much.

But once you began to learn that Robert Bashir's

had been in Texas, he had committed crimes

very similar to what had happened in Austin before.

You began to learn more.

I mean, this man's life had taken him

really all over the country in a way.

And just the other crimes and murders

that he had committed were just absolutely

not only just heart-wrenching,

but mind-blowing, really.

I've never had a case quite like this, actually,

when so much devastation, so many different offenses,

his victims were so young.

And he would target the youngest victim.

We do know that from some of the survivors

that we've talked to.

So it does make what he did even more heinous,

also the fact that he was so manipulative.

He was not dumb at all.

He was very smart.

And for someone to evade authorities

and stay out of jail as much as he did for all the crimes

he did, it was pretty remarkable.

Yeah, it is pretty remarkable, and that happens a lot.

And of course, we've covered sadly stories

of other serial killers.

He had been in prison for a while, and then was out of prison.

And he had this sort of checkered past

of all of these crimes, as you said.

I think you even said when he wasn't in prison,

he was murdering and raping women.

Ultimately, the Kentucky Police Department

announced that Bashir's was responsible for a 1998 homicide

fire that was so similar to the yogurt shop

as we talked about.

His daughter spoke with us, and she said something

which I've heard before.

I actually interviewed the daughter of the BTK killer years ago,

and it was just another chilling story.

And for her to have no idea that her father was in anyway

remotely a criminal.

And she said he seemed like a nice, normal guy.

And so did Bashir's daughter.

She said that she was just kind of a typical normal father.

How common is that?

I mean, as you said, you haven't experienced

a lot of these intense cases like this,

but the idea that they could just lead a fairly normal life,

but yet have this other side to them

that is just so volatile and vicious and heinous.

What did you make of that?

I think one of the things we're learning

more and more about serial killers,

and when you start looking at all of them,

that is how they were able to blend in so well with society

and to, you know, oh, my wife left her person the car.

Can I use your phone, right?

And you look so charming and normal,

and they let their guard down.

And he was able to just barge his way in

and manipulate situations.

And I can only imagine what he must have said

in the yogurt shop to gain their trust.

And I know there are going to be other crimes out there.

And that's what we're continuing to look at because, as you said,

I don't believe for a minute that when he was out in the free world,

and we don't have, you know, we've got this big timeline,

but there's gaps, and I don't believe for a minute

that he just took breaks into his killing spirit.

Right.

So you actually...

No, I think we're going to find more crimes.

Yeah, in fact, you've actually actively set out

bulletins asking other law enforcement areas

and communities to start looking around to see

if there may be something that sort of fits his pattern, haven't you?

We have, and we're going to probably send another one out

in the next week or two with even more information

and targeting certain areas we know he operated.

Well, the big question many will ask,

I mean, how a man like this can act alone,

a person like this could do something so awful,

and four young girls and in other cases,

there were other women, one after the other.

Do you believe that he just did this and acted alone

or do you think over time he might have had an accomplice anywhere?

You know, that was one of the main questions that I had and I still have.

I mean, we're not going to know for sure

until maybe we find a case where he did act with somebody,

but everything we've seen up to date, he's been alone.

The interesting thing, I think,

when I was trying to figure out how he could tie up

and do this to four different young girls at the same time,

the Memphis case, the Memphis Tennessee case

where he actually let them live, that involved for women.

And he was able to sweet talk his way in and then boom,

he's holding a gun to them and gets them to tie themselves up.

He pulls the phone cord out, ties another one up,

and then asks basically who is the youngest fear

and that's what he sexually assaults.

The same thing.

So you can only imagine, but he was able to do that

without anyone else there for those four girls.

And I'm sure that must, when I read that report,

I thought this is how the yogurt shop happened.

Well, manipulation and manipulation in youth,

as you said, in innocence, all of those things

that were stolen from these girls.

The families are so, so fortunate that they had you

on their side.

I have to tell you, you know, just tireless

in the work that you did.

And it's really pretty amazing too

that you've managed to stay in touch with them

and maybe sort of offer a little bit of solace to them

in the sense that they, some of them,

at least have built a friendship with you.

I think it's so important when we cover these stories

and we make it a point on 2020 to make sure

we say the names of the victims.

We bring to life the names and the lives of these victims.

And in this case, we're talking Sarah,

Jennifer, Eliza, and Amy.

And their families, all they're trying to make sure

that their memory, their legacy is honored.

We see that so often and the same is true

in the case with these young girls as well.

No, it's very true.

And, you know, we, I go by the memorial,

even during the investigation when we would be stalling out

and I'd be so frustrated, I would always stop

that I would go and get gas.

It was out of my way that it was right across from the yogurt shop.

It just, I kind of wanted to feel their presence

or their spirits and say, am I crazy for continuing?

You know, give me something, give me some sign

and there's a little memorial there for them

and sometimes I just go touch it just to kind of give me strength.

But after the case was over, going back there that day

and being able to, and it was before we told the families

and I was able to just put my hands on it

and think, you know, the news it was about to break

and how happy those families were gonna be.

Well, to finally learn the truth.

And as I said, they're very fortunate to have had you

on their side, you brought the truth.

No matter how difficult it was,

they did finally get some answers after all those years.

Mindy, it is such a pleasure to get to talk to you

and I'm looking forward to meeting you in person here

at 2021 of these days.

So we'll keep working on something maybe

at some point down the world, I'm sure.

And to our listeners and viewers,

thank you for joining us as always

for this podcast episode.

And of course, remember, you can catch our latest

2020 episode on Friday nights on ABC

and stream episodes like this one on anytime

on Disney Plus and on Hulu.

Thanks a lot and we'll look forward to seeing you all next time.

From 30 for 30 podcasts.

Brian Pada, Senior Defensive Lime and From Miami, gunned down.

The key to this case, it's Brian.

Oh, my goodness, it's right there.

A hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing what's about.

This might be a hit.

You want the truth.

They just want to conviction the impressive arrest.

We had a killer amongst us murder at the you listen now.

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